BSc Hons MSc C Psychol AFBPsS

Initial Consultation

Finding the right type of therapy that will best help you with your problems can be bewildering. At the first one or two sessions I will want to explore with you the difficulties that have led you to consider psychotherapy or counselling including thinking with you about what you would like to get from your therapy. At the end of this time I will talk through with you the type of therapy that I recommend. This may include suggesting an alternative type of therapy if I cannot offer what you may require. If it were agreed that starting therapy is the best way forward then session times and fees would be discussed.

Brief Therapies

I have skills in a variety of time-limited psychological therapies with proven effectiveness in helping people struggling with a wide range of emotional problems.

Cognitive behavioural therapy helps people to understand and successfully reduce the symptoms of stress; anxiety and low mood or low self-esteem that they are presently experiencing that can limit what they can achieve in their lives. It focuses on both reducing people’s current distressing physical symptoms and targets the unhelpful patterns of thinking people can find themselves trapped in. It can reduce the impact that these frightening experiences can have on how people feel as well as help them move towards the goals they have in their lives.

Interpersonal Therapy is relatively new treatment in this country that is recommended by the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence people as an effective therapy for people experiencing depression or low mood and feelings of fear. I am a fully accredited Practitioner in this specialist type of therapy with the NHS recognised registering body IPTUK. This therapy focuses on helping people experiencing depression or low mood and anxiety following major changes or losses in their lives, bereavement or difficulties in one or more of their close relationships. IPT focuses on helping people make changes in how their current relationships are working.

Brief psychodynamic psychotherapy is helpful for people experiencing emotional struggles within themselves that leave them feeling low or worried and struggling to progress they way they wish to in their lives. Sometimes these difficulties can be reflected in problems in relationships. People may see that they are repeating or worried about repeating past unhelpful patterns in themselves, their relationships and they feel stuck. People may be troubled by memories of their past they find painful from which they can’t seem to move on. It is a type of therapy that offers a more open exploratory space where the impact of the past comes more into the discussion. As it is brief there is a specific area that is agreed at the beginning of the therapy to be the one kept very much to the fore in sessions.These types of therapy are most effective with problems that are more focussed such as loss in it’s many forms, specific relationship problems, work related difficulties or sudden traumatic events.

Therapy would usually be for between 6 to 20 50-minute sessions

Open-ended Psychotherapy

Part of my work specialises in long-term psychoanalytic psychotherapy. This type of treatment is for people who wish to understand themselves and their relationships more in-depth. In a similar way to brief psychodynamic psychotherapy this therapy is helpful for people who perhaps find themselves may be stuck in repeated unhelpful patterns in their lives experiencing, troubled relationships. Someone may be struggling with feelings of fear or anxiety, feelings of low mood or problems coping with physical health problems. This list is not an exhaustive one. Someone may wish to explore a painful past to understand and therefore be able to alter its impact on his or her present life. Someone may have been helped by previous therapy and aim for more in-depth underlying change. Open-ended therapy differs from brief therapy in that the therapy ranges widely over the full range of areas that may need to be explored and understood in order to make deeper change.

Sessions vary from once a week to twice or three times per week. If this type of therapy is required we would discuss session frequency and timings at the initial consultation.

Supervision Training Service Development

I have many years experience of clinical, professional and managerial supervision with a wide variety of disciplines both those in training as well as qualified practitioners. This has been within NHS settings as well as privately.

I offer individual, group and telephone supervision designed to meet the specific requirements involved.

I have a long-standing commitment to pre-and post qualification training within my specialist fields of Clinical and Counselling psychology, Interpersonal Therapy and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. As such I offer training in these areas to both pre-qualification practitioners in a wide variety of disciplines.

My work as an NHS Consultant leading psychological therapy services includes considerable service development experience including developing innovative partnership services with non-NHS organisations. As such I offer consultation in service re-design and development.